Ten ways to hide the pickled beetroot

We’ve got family visiting next week. That’s good – we enjoy having family come to stay for a few days (though it’s also nice when they go again!). The problems start when they spot something in the kitchen cupboards we’d carefully moved to the back out of sight.

“Oh look, you’ve still got some of that lovely home-made pickled beetroot.”

Damn!

So this time, we’ve been thinking of ways and places to hide the beetroot.

And it’s not just the pickled beetroot we have to hide.

Okay … I give up.

As it’s coming up to Christmas, wrap it to look like a present. Trouble is, one of our visitors has a habit of feeling presents in an attempt to guess what they are.

Hide it in the back of a completely different cupboard. This could work, except these guests often help with the cooking and cleaning, so no cupboard is safe.

Under our bed. Oh … forgot … they sleep on our bed, and we sleep down stairs on the sofa bed … this arrangement is best as we get up early and want to get to the kitchen (to check the beetroot is still there).

Cut out a (clean) piece of green plastic to float on the top, making it look mouldy. Our very sell-by-date-conscious visitor will spot this and throw the contents into the food waste bin.

Eat it all before they come. It’s a very large jar, nearly full, and we only have a couple of days.

Box it up, take it to the Post Office, and send it to ourselves. Either this will defy all the odds and come back straightaway (while they’re still with us), or it will come back completely smashed.

Hide it in the loft or the shed. Could work, but it’s surprising how often we end up rummaging in both places, with our visitors’ help.

Hide it in my partner’s voluminous handbag. Curious child says. “Look mummy, see what Auntie has in her bag besides the kitchen sink – beetroot!”

Bury it in the garden. Won’t work – the dog’s bound to dig it up.

Ask a neighbour to look after it (spinning some highly implausible story about why our visitors must not be tempted to eat the beetroot). When we go to collect it, they’ll say: “Hope you didn’t mind, it looked so lovely, we’ve … er … eaten it.”